The Last Revelation II: The Rainbow Serpent
by Heidi Ahlmen
Summary: In 1989, an excavation team from Chicago University is working in Pisac, Peru. One of the members is a young archaeology major, Jean-Yves DuCarmine, who discovers more than just amphora pieces when he runs across a prodigy student named Lara Croft.
1. Chapter 1

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
================================================== The Last Revelation Part II: The Rainbow Serpent by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==================================================  
  
Chapter 1  
  
"Me and Jean. We've always sort of covered each other's behinds. Should the matter be that someone had snuck into a library somewhere and messed up the place, I'd be there, claiming he had been with me. Or, when Katharine Barret of The Natural History Museum of London put me through hell trying to find out where a certain vial of embalming fluid had disappeared, Jean, writing by request from Paris, pointed out a list of facts that cleared my reputation. Of course, it had been me, no question about that. I would be, and am, a talented thief, but rarely use my abilities. After that incident he sent me a postcard addressed to "the one who could mug Mona Lisa but is too moralist to do it." One could hardly have called me a moralist when I was younger and beginning my adventuring career. I used to be a real pain for my colleagues - real scavenger, ready to take advantage of anyone's success and steal the prize. I was cynical, young and hungry for fame. Looking back to those years that I studied in Chicago university and met Jean, I feel a bit sad. I was so young I hadn't had time to be lonely yet. So many things have changed since then.  
  
Dating back to those times, I was just like liebe Werner von Croy is nowadays, pardon my sarcasm. The way I worked and my individuality were what eventually lead to the parting of my and Jean's ways. I'd hardly call him a lover as it is a degrading term for a male companion.  
  
He's always been there, in the background, but we never discussed our relationship since it ended. It sounds surprising, knowing what a good team we were. It all began years ago in Peru."  
  
Dasca Forest  
  
Pisac, near Vilcabamba  
  
Peru 1989  
  
"Professor Murray?" a gasping voice with a distinctive French accent made the old archaeologist turn around.  
  
"Yes, young man? Jean, was it?"  
  
The young man nodded, waiting for his lungs to calm down. The reddish dust, the heat and the long run from the dig had made him nearly hyperventilate.  
  
"Professor Murray, we've found something. Something really important that you should see."  
  
Professor Murray smiled at his enthusiasm.  
  
"Is this your view on the subject or did Carli send you? Jean, haven't I warned you youngsters about trying too hard?"  
  
Jean looked slightly embarrassed. The blond-haired Frenchman pushed a dusty, uncombed lock of hair behind his ear and dug out something from his pocket. It was a tiny gold idol.  
  
"Professor Sandringham sent me. There are plenty of these. We found a pot."  
  
Professor Murray interrupted him.  
  
"An amphora, Jean."  
  
"Amphora," Jean repeated quickly and returned his attention to the muddy idol.  
  
"You found an amphora, and what?" professor Murray helped. Jean spoke good English, but archaeology slang was something he definitely should prep on.  
  
"We found a pot full of these. Professor Sandringham says the amphorapot has something that needs reading."  
  
Unsure of what Jean-Yves had meant with 'reading', Professor Murray grabbed his brimmed hat and put it on.  
  
"Hold on a minute, Jean. Have a glass of water while I gather my things. I wasn't expecting that you'd need me today over at the digs so this will take awhile. Oh yes, could you please wake my assistant up and tell her it's time to go."  
  
Every summer, Professor Murray employed his brightest student from those studying the four year period, a bachelor's degree in archaeology as their goal, as his research assistant. The summer post was very highly coveted, and you had to work your way to it. Besides a sense of duty you needed natural talents for field work. The research assistant was nearly always a fourth-year student. A couple of years ago there had been a second-year student, an exceptionally bright young man from Canada. Nevertheless, the best student got the post. The university had three ongoing digs at the moment, two in Nevada and one in Peru. Professor Murray, the head of the faculty, naturally travelled to the most important one of them to lead the dig. The other archaeologist working on the dig, besides a bunch of university students, was Carli Sandringham, teacher of cultural anthropology at the same university.  
  
This year had been exceptional in many ways. Firstly, the university's financial problems had forced them to end the digs in Cambodia. And, for the second time in history, Professor Murray had chosen a second year- student as his assistant. That had caused a lot of complaints at first, but most whining mouths had chosen silence after learning who the assistant was. Of course, not everyone knew her very well. There were over two hundred archaeology majors in the university, and one couldn't possibly know them all.  
  
Jean-Yves DuCarmine, a talented but a little too careless student, had only gotten a digger's job in Peru, and had been waiting to meet the assistant ever since they had arrived. He was curious - like people in the nineteenth century who paid to see a freak show, he had to admit. Who was this super- talented girl, who, judging by the rumours, had never studied archaeology before signing in to Chicago, a difficult school to get into. That couldn't be true. She had probably done some intensive studying on her own.  
  
Jean watched Professor Murray enter his trailer and close the door. He was left on the clearing in the Peruvian forest where the research team's accommodation had been arranged. They all slept in a trailers, but these trailers that Professor Murray and Professor Sandringham stayed in, were a lot bigger and a lot newer. Remembering what the Professor had asked him to do, Jean tapped off mud from his dark red T-shirt, and walked up to a trailer parked a off the main group: the trailer with the small laserprinted sign: Research Assistant Lara Croft.  
  
A sharp knock on the trailer door woke Lara Croft up. She got up from the bed, nipping a beetle off her pillow in the process. She pulled on a pair of tennis socks, and tiptoed to the door. She opened the light door and was greeted with a relaxed smile.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Professor Murray sent me to tell you that we have to go," Jean explained, blinking in the afternoon sun and sounding, in his own opinion, very helpful. He was blinking so hard he didn't see very clearly. He took a step higher on the trailer stairs to get out of the scroching sunlight. and stopped at his feet.  
  
Feeling like a boy in his half-puberty, Jean felt a sudden urge to whistle. The person standing in the doorway was one of the most attractive women he had ever seen. Dressed in baggy beige shorts, very unsensually dirty tennis socks and a form-fitting white cotton shirt, she looked like no French girl. Her long, slightly reddishly brown hair had been braided but obviously she had misplaced the ribbon used in tying the ends. She had sharp, distinctive facial features, and big, brownish eyes. Jean shook his head in attempt to shake of some of the awe he was feeling and decided to start a conversation.  
  
"We have found something at the dig."  
  
Lara smiled mildly but warmly and made an inviting gesture. "Come on in. Good old Murray will spend at least an hour trying to find his gear." She shot a judging glance at him. "You look exhausted - don't let me be a terrible host, help yourself to some juice. The carton's in the fridge."  
  
She sounded organized, and due to the accent Jean decided she must've been from England. he climbed into the trailer. Every table was filled with books, and arcs of paper full of scribbled hieroglyphs and symbols had taken over the floor. QuickShut bags with amphora pieces had been tossed to a shoebox under the table. A lonely red bra hung from a cupboard doorknob.  
  
"Sorry about the mess. I worked all night last night. I'm not keen on all this heat. I don't believe I caught your name.?" Lara asked conversationally, trying to sound friendly. She was tired and hungry, but when duty called, she never whined.  
  
"Jean," Jean said, dusting a chair and sitting down as Lara started gathering her research equipment.  
  
"Just Jean?" Lara asked, filling a bottle from the water tank.  
  
"Jean-Yves DuCarmine, Miss Croft."  
  
Lara turned hastily. "Lara," she said and then returned to fussing around.  
  
Jean leaned on his elbows and tried to make sense of a carving that the woman had written down on a piece of a brown envelope. "I hope I didn't wake you up. Professor Murray said that you might be."  
  
"I do sleep during the day and work during the night." Lara cut her off, pulling a pair of boots behind a cupboard.  
  
"You have a quite a luxurious trailer." Jean commented, hoping she would not take offence.  
  
"Thank you. Could you please put that down," Lara pointed at the book Jean had picked up and started thumbing through. "I don't want anyone to mess with my stuff. That's an old book, please be careful."  
  
Jean looked at her, a bit annoyed. "I'm an archaeology major like you. A second year student just like you. Please don't start bossing me around."  
  
Lara grinned playfully. "Does that mean you won't obey?"  
  
Who was this woman? Who was this woman who had the same privileges and education as him and yet she dared challenge him? Still, she was obviously joking and Jean left it at that.  
  
While Jean's mind was racing, Lara had put on her boots, spread some suncream on her cheeks, and grabbed a worn-out brown backpack. Now she was headed for the door.  
  
"You coming, Jean-Yves?"  
  
Jean rose, already missing the soft armchair.  
  
They arrived at the excavation site as the sun was going down, and the first nightly sounds of crickets had started singing. Lara and Professor Murray went to talk to Professor Sandringham, and Jean came along, unsure yet if he was supposed to.  
  
Professor Graham Murray was delighted as he examined the amphora in Dr. Sandringham's tent. The amphora was massive, filled with delicate carvings obviously signaling that they were drawing near something really worth finding. One of the gold idols, in his opinion, looked curious, but he didn't manage to get hold of his thought long enough to realize what it could be.  
  
Lara was sitting crosslegged on the ground, nipping off beetles and examining the idol with Professor Murray. Jean stayed in the doorway.  
  
Professor Murray remembered him suddenly.  
  
"Jean-Yves, come on in. You have to see this, as you did such a wonderful work with your essay on the sacrificial rituals of the Incas."  
  
Lara cleared her throat and Jean looked puzzled.  
  
"Professor Murray, that was my paper," Lara stated, and returned her gaze back to the idol.  
  
The professor laughed. "So it was, indeed. I apologize. Jean wrote an excellent essay on the role of women in the Inca society."  
  
Lara turned to look at Jean, a bit surprised. Jean couldn't help but smile a little. He knew he had somehow earned a point in Lara Croft's eyes. He entered the tent and dared himself to sit next to Lara. Feeling like a schoolboy, Jean leaned closer to Lara.  
  
"It's a marvellous piece of work," she admired, and passed the artefact to Jean.  
  
He seemed like an okay guy. At least he wasn't one of those arrogant brats who thought archaeology was dull and boring but worth studying because all the chicks were fit after spending their summers digging in graves. She kind of liked his French accent. Yet the truth was that she hardly had time for new acquaintances. Too much work to do. Besides, her own project was going nowhere.  
  
Lara bit her lip and turned to Professor Murray. "Could this be used as a key?"  
  
The professor looked at her, a bit suprised at her revelation.  
  
"I don't know. I don't think so. Look at the sharp edges. The Incas didn't have the technology to make locks that would require winding movements. It's downright impossible."  
  
"I think it's possible," Jean said to no one in particular, trying to sound polite. No one seemed to have heard it. Except for Lara, who gave him an annoyed look, stood up, and left the tent.  
  
They spent three hours in the dig, and Professor Sandringham decided to spend the night at the site. Lara and Professor Murray returned to their accommodations, and Jean was also feeling a bit tired. Half-past eight, when the last bird had finished its final note for the day and darkness had started to rest in the forest, Professor Sandringham told everyone else to leave for the trailers and go to bed except for Jean.  
  
"Jean, I need to ask you a favor. Graham asked me to send him the copied carvings as soon as the drawer has finished, and she finished earlier than I thought. I know you can drive, could you please take these to Professor Murray?"  
  
'Oh, great, overtime,' Jean thought, but grabbed the pile of documents anyway, along with Carli Sandringham's car keys. She had rented a four- wheel-drive, a steady land rover. Jean shut off his lamp and covered his square of the dig, and threw his bag to the backseat of the car. He started the engine and headed for a muddy jungle road that wiggled its way through the thick forest.  
  
Professor Murray was fast asleep when Jean arrived. No wonder he didn't reply to his quiet knock. Standing out in the chilling darkness, he wondered what to do. Not letting himself hesitate, he walked up to Lara's trailer. 


	2. Chapter 2

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
================================================== The Last Revelation Part II: The Rainbow Serpent by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==================================================  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Lara Croft was cooking and working at the same time. It was a skill she was proud of. Cooking spaghetti and reading a book didn't even get near the word difficult, but try creating a pasta sauce and deciphering symbols. Her small portable cassette player was stumbling its way through her Nine Inch Nails cassette, and she whistled along.  
  
Lara decided her meal shouldn't be wasted by eating in the kitchen, so she pushed off a pile of books from the sofa table and placed a plate and cutlery on it. It was almost nine in the evening, but Lara felt like she had just waken up. As she had told Jean, she worked during the nights when it was quieter and chillier.  
  
Just as Lara was on her way to the living room, carrying a kettle full of pasta and sauce, someone knocked on the door. Suspicious as always, she remembered the door was locked. She walked to the cupboard, pulled out her spare pistol, and walked to the door, keeping her back to the wall.  
  
Outside Jean was busy slapping off Peruvian mosquitoes attempting to turn him into a grand festival banquet, wondering if Lara had heard his knock. He knocked again, a little louder.  
  
"Who is it?" yelled a threatening voice inside.  
  
"It's me, Jean. We met today," Jean answered politely.  
  
"Hold on a sec," Lara said, then put down her gun and opened the door.  
  
"Can I come in? I have something for Professor Murray," Jean explained.  
  
"Professor Murray can be found in the next trailer. As the sign says."  
  
It was Jean's turn to sound not-so-polite.  
  
"I am not stupid, Lara. He's asleep; he can't hear me knock. Professor Sandringham sent these and I thought that you could take them."  
  
Lara's appearance softened.  
  
"Come in. I was just about to eat. Fancy some spaghetti?"  
  
Jean smiled, and stepped in, closing the door behind him. "Why not?"  
  
Lara went to get another plate, and they settled to the table. Lara didn't say a word, so Jean figured he had to start a some sort of a conversation.  
  
"So, what brought you to Chicago? You aren't from America."  
  
Lara swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti and wiped the sauce drops off her lips with her hand. "I'm from Britain, actually. The accent's usually a major giveaway. I wanted to study archaeology here because I've heard that Chicago has quite a reputation in the subject."  
  
"Have you always wanted to study archaeology?"  
  
"Not at all." She left it at that.  
  
"My father is an archaeologist. He was born in the French IndoChina and before retirement, worked as the head of the Asian division in the Museum Department of France."  
  
"I don't have a father," Lara stated, and whipped some more spaghetti around her fork. Before Jean managed to throw in an argument she continued. "When I was sixteen, I accompanied a certain famous Austrian archaeologist on a trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia. He had an accident, I escaped as a temple collapsed, and didn't save him. He's still mad at me, I've heard. He got out of there somehow. I had a sort of a lucky accident some time after that which made archaeology really seem like a plausible career choice. Jean, do you have a some sort of a dream - something you would like to discover? A pet project or something?"  
  
"In fact, I do," Jean said and took a sip of water. "I'm interested in the Amulet of Horus."  
  
"What's that?" Lara asked, looking puzzled.  
  
Slightly suprised because Lara hadn't heard of the amulet, Jean explained. "According to an Egyptian legend, the Amulet of Horus is the very key that Horus used to seal the evil god Seth in his coffin."  
  
"Oh."  
  
A little hurt that Lara didn't sound too intrigued, he decided to return the question.  
  
"What about you? By the way, was that Austrian archaeologist by any chance Werner von Croy?"  
  
"Indeed he was, and I do have a pet project. When he had the accident, we were looking for the Angkorean Iris. You are familiar with the artefact, aren't you?" Jean nodded. "I saw it, but neither of us got it. It belongs to me because I won a certain bet against him. And I want to go and collect my prize. The temple collapsed - got completely destroyed - but there were some rooms in the basement. I saw them. There must be another entrance in."  
  
"Or not. You don't know."  
  
"I have discovered some proof supporting my theory, but nothing too certain yet. If I could just get in touch with the head of the National Museum in Phnom Penh, I could perhaps."  
  
"Lara, you know what? My father has retired, but I'm sure he could get us what we need. He was the head of his department after all and probably knows the person you mentioned."  
  
Lara smiled.  
  
Weeks later, the hot Peruvian sun had tanned everyone golden brown and made working on the dig a metabolical challenge. Mosquitoes were constant companions of the diggers, and the not-so-fit Professor Murray had adopted Lara's practice of working at nights and sleeping during the day.  
  
They had made remarkable progress. The dig was no longer an area full of red sand and dust, but a building had started to appear from the ground. It was solid rock, in form of a mastaba of some sorts or an antechamber. Everyone was excited, but the diggers didn't consider it such a big deal - they knew that if any unusual structures were uncovered from the sands of time, it would be the professors' and the research assistant's job to explore whatever was inside.  
  
Lara and Jean had both been busy on their own frontiers. They had met occasionally at the site, of course, but after that late-night meal, they hadn't really had a real conversation. Lara seemed always so caught up in her work, pacing back and forth between her trailer and the digs. She seemed less like a research assistant than a scientist working on her own, but after hearing Professor Murray comment on her work very positively to Professor Sandringham, Jean realized it was just her way of doing things.  
  
Lara always seemed very short-tempered and arrogant - she had ideas and wanted to show off her skill. She bossed the diggers around, but Jean noticed that she never commented on his work. Jean was a little annoyed when he wondered if the reason was that he hadn't yet proved his worthiness to this woman. But yet, he wanted to believe good of Lara Croft, as Jean was intrigued by someone as ambitious as he himself was, and at least equally skilled or more.  
  
On a cloudy Thursday, after lunch break, Jean observed Lara's arrival at the excavation site. He returned his attention to the dig again, delighted by the fact that he stood in a sort of a hole, and the chilly mud cooled the air around him.  
  
To his great surprise, Lara soon jumped down next to him and grabbed a palette knife.  
  
"Lara Croft."  
  
She smiled, and started scraping off mud from the doorway ornament. "I thought I'd give you a hand with this."  
  
"Have you done a lot of digging?"  
  
"Some. Not much. I spent a summer in Cinque Terre, Italy, and it wasn't really my cup of tea."  
  
Jean paused his scraping of another ornate figure and wiped off sweat from his forehead. "So what is your cup of tea?"  
  
"At least I know your forte, bookboy," Lara teased.  
  
Jean looked puzzled.  
  
Lara explained: "I've seen you many times in Chicago. You're always robbing the school library empty, and everyone knows it's you if they see someone carrying a pile of books higher than their forehead. No offence."  
  
"I have my books and you have your gun. We're even."  
  
This startled Lara - he'd seen her Beretta. She stopped scraping.  
  
"Try stopping a tiger with an encyclopedia and then come tell me if we're even." Without looking at Jean, she began scraping off the mud again.  
  
Jean sighed and decided to clear his reputation. "True; I love books, and I think that if we seek beauty and wisdom, ancient libraries are the places to start. I like field work, too, but I'd much rather work as a research assistant. How did you get the job, anyway?"  
  
"Easily, I studied a lot of extra history in finishing school, and majored in anthropology at Oxford." Lara replied, shaking off mud from her left tennis shoe.  
  
"You've studied in Oxford? That's quite a school," Jean complimented.  
  
"Nah, nothing special. The professors are a lot more strict than in Chicago, no talking of student-teacher co-operation like here. I like working independently."  
  
"So I've noticed," Jean commented and decided to renew his question. "So, what do you consider your field in archaeology?"  
  
"Egyptology interests me, along with the Mayas. I have a degree in Egyptology, but of course, if you want to be an archaeologist, you have to study archaeology itself."  
  
"So why didn't you continue in Oxford?"  
  
"As I probably made clear, I did not like their attitude. Plus I forgot to sign the reapplications, so they came to me untreated. That made me decide to apply to Chicago." Lara told, and stopped her incessantscraping to marvel at the now revealed human-shaped carving in the pillar.  
  
"You still didn't answer my question. Are you in for digging dirt, drawing things, reading symbols, or paperwork?"  
  
"It's called translating or deciphering."  
  
"Thanks," Jean replied, and cursed his English.  
  
"I'm in for field work, but not the kind of field work we do here. The bigger the better. The more dangerous the better. I want to try to recover something noone else would even try to. I'm into tomb raiding, you could say. "  
  
Jean-Yves hiked through the forest, taking a shortcut to their camp. He was a bit worried about pumas or whatever the forests hid - he hadn't bothered to read any kind of guidebooks before leaving for this summer job. The reassuring lights of his fellow students' trailers made small triangles on the dirt. Jean figured he couldn't be over a half mile from his trailer so he quickened his pace.  
  
He had been the last to wrap up the dig with Professor Murray, despite the fact that he had to walk through the dark woods afterwards. He wasn't afraid of the dark, and even if he were, it couldn't have made him leave the dig any earlier - they were too close to something, he could feel it.  
  
Their dig was expanding, but they hadn't opened the antechamber door yet. In fact, they had tried, but the heavy, odd-shaped rock refused to move. Jean-Yves had wondered if there was some complicated mechanism to open it, but threw this idea away when he remembered how Professor Murray had debunked Lara's theory about the gold idol being a key. Speaking of Lara. she had been digging with the team for some time, but from a distance from the actual site. She refused to tell anyone what she was doing, and Professor Murray seemed satisfied with her explanation; "I don't want to mess up the dig site just because I want to practice my digging skills - basic skills that I haven't used for ages." Jean was suspiciousfor some reason, but it was none of his business.  
  
Lara had disappeared back to her accommodation earlier that afternoon, after visiting the dig at dawn - very unusual for her.  
  
Jean continued threading the worn path, the light from his torch making round patterns as he moved, trying to spot possible spiderwebs in time.  
  
Suddenly he heard it.  
  
Rattling noises somewhere near him. Branches and twigs were breaking somewhere nearby. Jean stopped at his feet, his mind whirling with images of black panthers and other predators - but the noise soon stopped. Now he could only hear some rattled monkeys chattering in a nearby tree. Who or whatever had caused the noise had obviously shortly after he'd done so as though following his movements. Uncharacteristic for an animal. Besides, an animal wouldn't make that much noise, Jean-Yves reasoned, and his racing pulse slowed slightly.  
  
He heard the mysterious creature take a couple of steps closer. Jean turned his flashlight around hoping he would see what was skulking in the forest. Then he heard a whisper.  
  
"Jean?"  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	3. Chapter 3

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
================================================== The Last Revelation Part II: The Rainbow Serpent by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==================================================  
  
Chapter 3  
  
"Mon dieu, Lara, you scared me!" Jean shouted, and expected for Lara to step closer. Instead she leapt behind him and shut his mouth with her hand.  
  
"Quiet! Whisper, if you have to." Lara removed her hand, grabbing Jean's lamp and shutting it off.  
  
"Where are you?" Jean asked in the sudden darkness, if you didn't count the trailer lights shimmering in the distance.  
  
Lara patted him on the shoulder. "Right here."  
  
Jean turned, and Lara passed his lamp back.  
  
"You nearly gave me a heart attack," he whispered. Lara giggled as silently as she could; a clear, girlish giggle filling the night air. The monkeys had stopped chattering. "What in Heaven's name are you doing here in the dark?"  
  
Lara seemed to be thinking hard for a moment. Kneeling down on the ground, she waved Jean to switch on his lamp and point it down. Lara was holding a small thing in her hand, wrapped in a napkin. She removed the cover. The gold idol.  
  
"What are you going to do with that?" Jean asked in disbelief. The idol should not have been in Lara's possession.  
  
"You'll see," Lara said. "If I'm right this time, you are going to bloody well see something your librarian eyes have never seen before. Are you cold? Do you need more clothes?" She asked.  
  
Warmed by Lara's promise, Jean told her he was alright as he was, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.  
  
"Then let's go," Lara ordered, and grabbed Jean's wrist, pulling him along he could protest.  
  
Somehow, Jean wasn't even a tad bit surprised when Lara lead her to the dig site after a good ten minute walk. Lara kept up a quick pace, but Jean was tired, so she was hurrying him up all the time. Lara's voice sounded different than before. Full of anticipation. Exhilarated. Full of life.  
  
The ancient Inca burial site shone in the moonlight, and the excavation team's plastic covers hung in peace over the stone pillars, as there was no wind at all. Lara jumped down to the excavation hole, and lit a carbid lamp used by the diggers. Now Jean could take a good look at her.  
  
Lara usually favored keeping her hair in a bun, or wrapped it into a tight ponytail. Now it had been carefully braided to a long, shiny plait. She wore khaki shorts, a blue shirt, and hiking boots. She looked a whole lot different compared to her usual look: ripped jeans, cotton shirts and sneakers that had seen their best days ages ago. Jean followed her to the hole, and together they pulled off the plastic covering the tomb doorstone.  
  
"What now?" Jean asked.  
  
"You wait here and I go activate the mechanism." Lara climbed up from the hole.  
  
"What mechanism? Is that what you've been digging out?"  
  
"Guilty as charged," Lara replied as Jean passed her his flashlight.  
  
"Didn't you bring a flaslight? You can't do anything around here without a flashlight!"  
  
"There are plenty of lamps in Professor Sandringham's excavation tent. I'd have borrowed one from there."  
  
Lara disappeared, leaving Jean in the blinking light of the excavation lamp he'd lit.  
  
A moment later, Jean watched in utter disbelief as the the giant door creaked open. How could it move? They had been trying to move it twelve times and it refused to go anywhere. But there it was, moving aside steadily and slowly.  
  
Lara returned with two flashlights - she had borrowed one from the tent. The rock had now uncovered an entrance to what looked like tomb. Lara passed Jean his flashlight, and they stepped in.  
  
"Professor Murray is a little uncreative when it comes to tombs, don't you think?" Lara asked self-consciously, and let her flashlight circle to the tomb roof.  
  
The structure was built inside a large hill. The antechamber was large, its roof supported by pillars, some of them fallen, or touched by the hand of erosion, but most of them stood. The walls were decorated with an unusually carved row of feathery snakes.  
  
"Quetzalcoatl," Lara whispered to herself, and proceeded further. Both Lara and Jean were marveling at the realization that they were making the first footprints in the tomb for centuries. It felt marvellous - like walking on virgin land. Vines hung everywhere and strange kinds of mushrooms grew in the corner of the rock chamber. Thick vegetation formed a green wall opposite the spot where Lara and Jean stood.  
  
"Have you done this before?" Jean asked, still marveling at the ornaments. He had stopped a carefully carved, beautiful jaguar nearby. Lara nodded and walked to the green wall, pulling the vines aside. Jean followed after her, attempting to move to the next chamber, but Lara pulled him back. Jean looked at her, puzzled.  
  
"Ricochet arrows. Regular Peruvian trick. See those small tube-like things that look like ornaments in the ceiling? Unusual placement, but ricochets all the same. See," Lara said, picking up a stone and throwing it the middle of the next chamber. It was a small rock room that looked like a short haalway. The moment the rock hit the floor covered with woodsticks ricochets, still quite sharp, gushed out of the tubes in a deadly swarm. No- one could have survived that attack. Jean looked at Lara and couln't help but admire her instincts.  
  
"Horizontal arrows are easy, you can crawl or jump, but anything that comes down. You have to be careful. Short hallways are the worst. You think it's just a hallway - and the next moment you realize you own a harp and a pair of feathery wings."  
  
"Or a spiky tail," Jean mused as he inspected the hallway with his flashlight. "So we can't get through, right?" He wasn't too excited about seeing more ancient Peruvian tricks. Despite the carvings, the tomb hadn't been anything special yet. That didn't fit with the gold idol and other precious things they had found.  
  
"Who says we can't?" Lara said, and reached for her shorts pocket. She pulled out a pistol and loaded a couple of rounds.  
  
"You can shoot?" Jean asked.  
  
"No, I just carry a lethal weapon for fun," Lara snorted. "Of course I can shoot. I could outshoot a regular GI Joe anytime."  
  
"Pardon," Jean mumbled, "I've never seen an archaeologist with a gun before."  
  
Lara removed the safety clip and adjusted her finger on the trigger. "You know, if you had bothered to read a guide book or two, you'd know these forests hide jaguars and all sorts of things waiting to have a tasty piece of your cheeks, Jean. And I don't mean the ones on your face." Lara shot a serious glance at him. "One would think that when you've triggered the arrows once, that would be it. Wrong. When you step on that plate, another set flies down." Lara aimed, shot and in a moment another wash of ricochets showered down.  
  
Jean and Lara walked across the hallway, and Jean picked up a fallen ricochet. "Pretty nice work. There must've been some kind of poison inside, but it would have lost its edge by now."  
  
Lara didn't share his relaxed mood. She moved drastically, turning around many times, inspecting the chamber. "Never underestimate the Peruvians, Jean." Lara stopped at his feet, grabbing his arm. "When I say run, you run like a bat outta hell. Got it?"  
  
Jean nodded and swallowed, all relaxedness gone.  
  
Lara walked a couple of steps forward, and yelled "RUN!"  
  
They both dashed to the other end of the hall as a third storm of ricochets rained down. When they found themselves safely in the next chamber Jean waited for his ragged breath to calm down and then whispered; "How did you know?"  
  
Lara pointed at the hallway floor. It had lowered a couple of centimetres.  
  
"When you stand on it long enough, you get disembowelled. That's the name of the game. Think or die."  
  
"Lara Croft, I appreciate your skills very much and think you are a brilliant archaeologist, but can't we get the hell out of here before we end up as a meal for some fortunate jaguar?" Jean asked with sarcastic politeness.  
  
"We came all the way here - it would be such a waste to stop here. There's something worth all this trouble waiting for its finder at the end. I just know it. Remember the idol."  
  
Jean crossed his arms in disbelief.  
  
"It is not our job to find this, whatever it is. This is not the right time or place to go grave robbing. We should have Professors Murray and Sandringham with us. This should be done during daytime, with proper methods."  
  
Ignoring him, Lara moved to the next chamber. "Jean, if you want to be someone and not just an unknown standard archaeologist, you have to stop thinking so conservatively."  
  
Jean wondered for a second if she was right or not, decided he wasn't sure, and followed Lara.  
  
At the entrance to the next chamber, they stopped in amazement.  
  
It became quite obvious then that the tomb could not have belonged to an indifferent person in ancient Peruvian society.  
  
It was a large chamber with large knot-decorated tapestries on the walls - outlined in red and embroidered with images of striking panthers. In the middle lay a large gray rock coffin. The coffin itself was simplistic; like a rectangular box made of solid rock, but the cover was most impressive.  
  
There were carvings on it, carvings of the Rainbow Serpent and other mythological figures - and the hollows spots in the ornaments were filled with solid gold. Jean and Lara stepped closer, almost forgetting to pay attention to possible traps.  
  
"Like a diamond in a beggar's hand," Lara whispered as she ran her fingers along a snake-shaped carving on the surface. Jean was unsure of what she meant. Not the professors?  
  
Reluctant to leave the coffin, Lara took a quick look at both of the alcoves on the left side of the chamber. The whole burial room was the shape of an E. The main chamber consisted of the coffin and the dais that it stood on. The left antechamber was filled with spears and other weapons. Lara stretched her arm behind a pile of arrows and pulled something out from near the wall. She returned to the main chamber with her discovery.  
  
It was a large sword, of some sorts. The whole weapon was made of gold. 'No wonder the Incas didn't win their wars,' Lara thought. Gold was a quite a weak metal compared to the conquistadors' iron weapons. But, all the same, the sword was a masterpiece. Wielding the same panther figure, it was over a metre long, and heavy as a battleaxe. Lara swung it a couple of times, trying to get the feel of it. Jean followed her movements with his eyes, amazed at the beauty of the sword and slightly taken aback bu Lara's seemingly professional grip of the formidable weapon.  
  
After a few minutes Lara suddenly stopped, and after grabbing her flashlight again, pointed it at Jean, and asked; "What's the time?"  
  
Jean lifted his left sleeve. "Half-past three in the morning."  
  
"Good. We have time to check out the coffin and the rest of this place."  
  
Lara put the sword carefully back behind the arrows, and joined Jean, who was inspecting the right antechamber, walking slowly as though trying to keep quiet.  
  
"What's the matter?" Jean asked. "We don't have to keep quiet, we're all alone."  
  
Lara grinned. "The spirits will hear us."  
  
"What spirits?" Jean was confused.  
  
Lara jumped behind a pillar, pointing the flashlight in her neck. "I am the spirit of the rainbow serpent. Beware, you worthless mortal!" she joked.  
  
"Stop that or the spirits *will* hear us," Jean snapped, but not harshly. He was catching Lara's good mood. She acted like a kid in a candy store, inspecting and trying out everything. Lara walked forward, deeper to the pitch dark right chamber. Jean followed her close by. Suddenly, he heard something crashing and Lara cursing.  
  
"What happened?" he asked, pointing the light at where he thought Lara was. She was picking up the pieces of an amphora she had obviously stumbled upon and broken. She didn't seem to mind, and Jean soon saw why.  
  
What Lara had picked up was not a piece of an amphora. It was a bone. A human mandibula, no doubt about it.  
  
"Do you think they carried out sacrifices in honour of their dead high society?"  
  
"That's more than obvious," Lara replied, placing the bone carefully on the floor.  
  
The right chambed was full of amphoras, and Jean noticed some more broken ones. Bones and mold had fallen out of them. If there was one victim per amphora, then there must've been at least twenty people offered at the funeral of this deceased man. Perhaps he'd been a priest?  
  
Without a word, they left the chamber and returned to the coffin. Together they decided to push off the lid so that they could see the inside. Soon the heavy rock lid moved as they pointed their flashlights to the crack that had been revealed.  
  
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
  
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.  
  
siirma6@surfeu.fi 


	4. Chapter 4

I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider etc.  
  
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.  
  
================================================== The Last Revelation Part II: The Rainbow Serpent by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) ==================================================  
  
Chapter 4  
  
The coffin held a dead priest in his oddly grinning death mask that reminded Lara of the sad and happy Greek-style masks that you can see adorning every theatre. The body was clothed in some kind of light, white fabric, which time had turned brown. All around the body were gold bracelets, rings, heavy gold-plate necklaces, feathery arrows, and knotted strings. Pushing Jean aside, Lara lowered her flashlight hand to the coffin to see better.  
  
And she found what she was looking for. Underneath the dead priest's left arm was a small gold idol the shape on a bird. It was smaller than the one that had served as the key, but this one was decorated with jewels. Jean watched as Lara fished it out along with a large, golden necklace with stars engraved in it. In Jean's opinion she had the look of of a scavenger as she, obviously without feeling any guilt, wrapped the artefacts in handkerchiefs, and put the packages in her pockets.  
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Lara?"  
  
"I found the entrance, I've come to claim my prize. Do you honestly think I'd go running to Murray that I had found the entrance and give up all this? Nobody knows we've been here. No harm done."  
  
"Low morals don't suit you, Lara."  
  
"Like you care, bookboy. Here, grab a necklace and feel good about yourself." Lara dug up a piece of jewelry from the coffin and tossed it to Jean, who threw it back to the coffin.  
  
"I knew there was something about you that didn't fit that hard-working and honest image. Whatever. It's four past four a.m. We should get back."  
  
Lara seemed slightly worried as they started walking back to the hallway.  
  
"Are you going to tell Murray?"  
  
"You could at least say 'Professor Murray'."  
  
"Point taken. I don't get you, Jean. You've seen far too many movies. It doesn't work like that; all the professional ethics crap."  
  
Jean stopped and smiled slightly, ignoring Lara's last comment.  
  
"You didn't take much but I don't like it. But no, I'd never let down a friend. You took me with you. And yes, if I'd dared, I'd have done the same. I'm sure you, too, will discover that honesty is the best policy."  
  
Lara smiled back. "The idol is an Itkal bird. It's going to a collector in France."  
  
"Lara Croft, freelance grave robber."  
  
"Experience in currency, Jean. I've done this before."  
  
How much, Jean would have liked to ask, but shut his mouth. Obviously quite a lot. But how? She couldn't have such good resources or employers. She was a second-year archaeology major, but she did seem to have a much more formidable background than all the other students.  
  
"Who do you work for?" Jean asked.  
  
"Since I finished my MS in anthropology, the British Museum employed me. They got me this research assistant job, as they knew this was a piece of cake if I just got a hold of the idol before it was sent anywhere."  
  
"You are one piece of work, Lara. You knew about the idol, all the time?"  
  
Lara smiled in the flashlight's flickering light.  
  
"We have to hurry. Daylight's not far behind, and my battery's dying." She said.  
  
They quickened their pace. Jean cleared his throat.  
  
"Lara.?"  
  
"Mm-hmm?"  
  
"Why did you take me with you?"  
  
"I figured you'd be smart enough to guess what I was up to, bookboy."  
  
"If Professor knew his very own student was grave robbing his tomb."  
  
"Please don't call it grave robbing. These artifacts will get the attention they deserve, and not gather dust in a cardboard box in a museum basement. Everyone has the right to see these. The collector I work for has promised to make sure they get a decent place at a world-touring exhibition of Incan treasures."  
  
Jean was a little more convinced. "How are you going to get the gold through customs?"  
  
"Like you wouldn't believe," Lara said, smiling and leading the way out of the tomb.  
  
Lara and Jean covered the door trigger with mud and leaves, took the flashlight back, and returned the gold idol key to its box in the tent. Before returning to their trailers, they greeted the rising sun, sitting on a rock near the excavation.  
  
"You still up to helping me out with the Iris?" Lara asked, taking off her sweaty boots and stretching her toes.  
  
"Anytime, Croft. By the way, that is a lovely set of toes."  
  
Lara giggled that same, rare giggle. It seemed to come up everytime someone commented on her looks.  
  
"Thank you. That is a lovely piece of a beerbelly, Mr. Jean-Yves," she teased back, blinking as the first rays of the orange Peruvian sun reached the forest. Jean tried to shove her down the rock playfully.  
  
"The excavation ends the 31st of July. We have all August to run around in Angkor Wat." Lara commented when she scrambled back onto the slab of red rock.  
  
"Very nice. What do I get out of it?"  
  
"Every damned book we find," Lara winked at him; "You'll get fifty percent of everything we benefit from that trip. Deal?"  
  
"Sixty."  
  
"Fifty-five?"  
  
"Fifty-seven and a half?"  
  
"I'll give you fifty-eight, if you survive the trip."  
  
"You'll see, Lara. You'll see."  
  
"So we have a deal?" Lara offered her hand for Jean to shake. He pushed it aside.  
  
"Not a handshake, Lara. All good companionships and deals are sealed." Jean leaned closer; ".With a kiss."  
  
Lara had no time to resist before Jean pressed his lips on hers and then pulled back. Realizing she had actually closed her eyes, Lara felt a sudden urge to leave. She pulled her boots back on, getting up to leave.  
  
Jean grabbed her arm. "We do have a deal, don't we?"  
  
Lara turned back, smiling. "We do. I'm just not yet used to your French politeness."  
  
"You think you could get used to it?" Jean asked playfully.  
  
"You'll see, Jean. You'll see," she grinned mysteriously, and jumped down from the rock. As Lara Croft disappeared into the Peruvian bushes gleaming in the sunlight, Jean realized he was already looking forward to Angkor Wat.  
  
"The excavation ended in schedule, the 31st of July 1989. The excavation team had no real success after they decided the door rock was not going to move. Professors Sandringham and Murray decided some tree roots had pinned the rock down, and planned on using explosives the next summer. And as always happens when impatience rules over creativity and scientific methods, it was a disaster. The whole system of chambers collapsed as the explosion ripped through the supporting pillars, destroying the coffin underneath a pile of rock. I knew I should have opened my mouth about the key, but that would have revealed my plan to my educators, and I couldn't afford to lose the sum of money I was getting from the Itkal bird statue. I was poor as a rat at the time of my studies in Chicago, as my father obviously wasn't sending me generous cheques. That gold statue probably paid the rest of my Ph. D. Studies.  
  
I believe every human being is allowed one mistake because of ignorance, and one for sheer stupidity. This arrogant case tomb raiding was my ignorance. My stupidity followed years later, in a place known as the Valley of Kings in Egypt.  
  
But some good did come out of it as the bird statue also helped fund our little trip to Angkor Wat.  
  
But that is another story.  
  
Lara Croft"  
  
End of part II/V  
  
~For additional information and insight concerning this story, check out the archive "Lara Croft's Tales Of Beauty And Power". I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.  
  
Heidi  
  
All feedback to: siirma6@surfeu.fi 


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